Based on the diverging interests of Germany and Poland as influential members of the European Union on the Eastern Partnership (EaP), the contributions in the anthology analyse specifics and current problems of the states in EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. By including the interests of Russia and the USA, which go beyond the EU, the geostrategic implications of these relations for the Eurasian region will also be highlighted. The studies of renowned German and Polish experts represent the results of individual research and bilateral exchange on the current state of EU’s relations towards its Eastern neighbours.

Based on the diverging interests of Germany and Poland as influential members of the European Union on the Eastern Partnership (EaP), the contributions in the anthology analyse specifics and current problems of the states in EU's Eastern neighbourhood. By including the interests of Russia and the USA, which go beyond the EU, the geostrategic implications of these relations for the Eurasian region will also be highlighted. The studies of renowned German and Polish experts represent the results of individual research and bilateral exchange on the current state of EU's relations towards its Eastern neighbours. Contents The EU and its concept of neighbourhood Germany and Poland: Common interests and different views on the EaP Cooperation and conflict in the Eastern neighbourhood of the EU Russia's influence on the EaP and on national policies Target Groups Researchers and students in Political Science Journalists and practitioners The Editors Prof. Dr. Wolfram Hilz, Professor of Political Science with a special focus on Foreign and Security Policy and European Studies at the University of Bonn. Dr. Shushanik Minasyan, Research fellow with a special focus on EU Neighbourhood Policy and Energy Policy at the University of Bonn. Dr. habil. Maciej Raś, Associate Professor with a special focus on EU's Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia at the University of Warsaw. .

This article proposes a gendered critique of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a policy framework that, amongst other things, aims to facilitate the mobility of migrants to the EU from the bordering countries. We highlight the ambivalences of European regimes of gender and migration, and we take issue with the celebration of the "feminisation of migration." The former fails to offer opportunities to women to safely embark on autonomous migratory projects, the latter contributes to reproduce traditional gender biases in the countries of origin as well as of destination. We conclude by suggesting that the EU critique to emigration countries for failing to tackle women's discrimination falls short of persuasiveness when confronted with the curtailment on women's independent mobility within the ENP framework.

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Region: Eastern Europe, grade: 1,3, University of Hamburg (Departement für Wirtschaft und Politik), language: English, abstract: Up to today the realities in Post-Soviet space are defined by the search for state and national identity in contrast to the former peripheral existence during the Soviet past. From the very beginning of their independence the newly independent states were afflicted with different problems resulting from the ambiguous situation of quasi sovereignty but still strictly Moscow centralised rule. A regime change always demands great flexibility in ideas of these who have to deal with the remains of the past and the results of the breakdown in order to find an adequate approach to the new realities. It is therefore not astonishing that in account to the various economic and social constraints in the different Newly Independent States, each was in search of its own way to deal with the problems of state-building, acceptance of the international community and Russia’s attempts to dominate the former sphere of influence. The analysis will deal with the special case of Ukraine's emancipation from the USSR heritage and the historic dominance of an imperial Russia. The focus of analysis will be put on the processes of state-identity building in the framework of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), Western Europe and the EU, as well as the context of Russian foreign policy towards the ‘Near Abroad’. The subject is especially relevant today, since a wave of ‘colourful’ revolutions has taken place on the territories of some former Soviet republics in the past to years, showing that the political processes of forming a nation are still hard to predict in that region. The important change that goes on in the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, is the transition from the main foreign policy objective of the 1990s – either to escape from Russia or to stay. Now, the question seems to be: ‘Where to go?’. Ukraine, during the events of November-December 2004, the so-called “Orange Revolution”, seems to have chosen a new quality of nation state identity – the Euro-Atlantic orientation in the international arena. In the following work, Ukrainian state identity building in the sphere of influence of two major world powers, the European Union and Russia, will be in the focus of social and political analysis. The approach is aiming at developing a better understanding of the Ukrainian situation which can be metaphorically be described as that of a “shock absorber” between Russia and the European Union (EU) in many perspectives.

Over the last two decades, Eastern Europe has experienced extensive changes in geo-political relocations and relations leading to everyday uncertainty. Attempts to establish liberal democracies, re-orientations from planned to market economics, and a desire to create ‘new states’ and internationally minded ‘new citizens’ has left some in poverty, unemployment and social insecurity, leading them to rely on normative coping and semi-autonomous strategies for security and social guarantees. This anthology explores how grey zones of governance, borders, relations and invisibilities affect contemporary Eastern Europe.

In recent years a series of crises have erupted on the European Union's eastern borders. Russia's annexation of Crimea and the subsequent conflict in eastern Ukraine presented the EU with a major foreign policy challenge, in both Ukraine and across the other countries of the so-called Eastern Partnership. In response, the EU has begun to map its own form of 'liberal-redux geopolitics' that combines various strategic logics. This book traces the effect of these crises on the foreign policy of the EU, examining the changes in policies towards the countries on its eastern borders, the EU's review of the Eastern Partnership, as well as the EU's relations with Russia overall. It goes on to uncover whether the EU has contained the crisis or if it has set up new conditions for more instability in the future.

Approaches democratization of the European neighbourhood from two sides, first exploring developments in the states themselves and then examining what the European Union has been doing to promote the process.